My Friend, The Mayor- Small-Town Politics In The Age Of Trump (Feature DOC), Audience FEEDBACK from Jan. 2021 Film Festival
12m
Directed by Max Westerman
Among the first to be hit by the AIDS epidemic in the 1980’s, Sean Strub’s political ambitions took a backseat as he struggled to survive. Now 60, he is running for mayor of a conservative town in Pennsylvania. How will this liberal, openly gay ex-New Yorker and founder of POZ, a magazine for people with HIV, fare in a rural community that voted for Donald Trump? My Friend, The Mayor follows his two-month campaign through to its nail-biting finish. The documentary, filmed by Sean’s friend and former Dutch TV-correspondent Max Westerman, is an inspiring and hopeful portrayal of small-town democracy in the age of Trump. The election of a controversial president has energized voters at the local level, with many getting involved in surprisingly bipartisan ways.